Marian is DEFINITELY NOT crying into her tray of creepy magic school cafeteria food that someone kindly brought her, she just...has allergies, or something, yeah that's probably it... 

She scrambles up, dabs her eyes on the sleeve of her scrubs, and goes to open the door. "Yes? Do you need medical attention?" 

"I will trade wards on your office for medical training."

"I don't like doing this. He going to die," Jin Zixun says in significantly worse English.

Marian lights up at the mention of wards, then droops a bit and glances between the two of them. This seems...awkward? She's clearly missing some backstory here. 

Eh, whatever. 

"Wow! Uh, what kind of wards, how long will they last - this other kid did one on the door but he said it wouldn't last very long...?" 

"Zixun's wards are very good. He'll update them as needed, as long as you teach me."

"For two weeks until you die!"

...Marian looks between the two of them again. This is agonizingly awkward but it seems important not to make agreements with people when she's clearly missing gigantic chunks of context. 

"Uh, you two seem to - feel differently about this?" she says uncertainly. 

"Sorry, I'm the favorite of the, uh, leader? Of the Shanghai enclave? Zixun is an asshole who likes making people upset but I can in fact tell him to do whatever I want. And what I want is to learn medicine."

"Well, that's a good idea and I'd be happy to teach you! Uh, is there an - urgent reason for it? Just wondering if I should prioritize a particular area when I decide what order to explain things in." 

"The school doesn't have the biology classes. My affinity is healing. I'd like to learn to heal without magic so I don't have to use the mana for everything. I think also that knowing more about the body make inventing healing spells easier."

"....The school doesn't have biology classes? Man, that sucks. I guess it's not the priority if you're magic but still! Anyway, yeah."

She glances around. "Fortunately I don't even have to try to ask the void for this, my infirmary came with one book and it's Gray's Anatomy." Marian goes and retrieves it from the shelf. "So. About where are you at now? I mean, uh, do you...know that bodies have organs, and stuff?" 

"The previous nurse taught me some thing. I know about the vital signs and the bodily systems and the first aid."

"Oh - so you're not freshman students then." Which bodes well for her wards! "Right. So - hmm, we're going to want to cover treating injuries more than illnesses, I guess? Since it's just kids here, none of you are going to be having heart attacks. Hmm - if you've done basic anatomy and organ systems, maybe we should start by covering some physiology background, and that'll cover a lot of background on what drugs work to treat different things?" 

"Yes, I am interested in the drugs. --Zixun, do the wards."

He mutters something extremely irritated in Mandarin. 

"Drugs, I think, have the effect that the spells have? So I will be able to better work with the body's expectations."

"- Huh! Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, I guess." To the extent that ANY of this makes ANY sense. It's literally magic. 

She flips to the index of Gray's Anatomy. "Uh, right - do you know about cells and what's in them?" 

"I have a spell that lets me look at the cells."

"What? Whoa! That's amazing, I'm so jealous! ...Uh, anyway. I don't know how obvious the structures are, so - let's look at this diagram?" 

An antique copy of Gray's Anatomy is not the best source of detailed and clear biology diagrams, but Marian manages to find one of a cell. "Right - do you know what the different bits are here?" 

Wen Qing will in fact summon an illusion of her own cell and compare notes between it and the diagram. 

That's soooooooo cool! 

"- Uh, I - that's confusing, sorry, I think this is a plant cell - it says 'cell wall', animal cells don't have that and I think don't have vacuoles either, just a membrane. But the cytoplasm and nucleus are all right - here let me look at yours, maybe I can just draw it and label the bits..." 

Marian is not the world's best artist, but can label a very oversimplified diagram that has the right bits for an animal cell. 

"So, uh, do you know what mitochondria do?" 

"They are the powerhouse of the cell! I hear the Americans make a joke about it."

Marian giggles. "Well, that's one way to find that out! Yeah, they make energy, basically. It's called 'cellular respiration' - respiration is another word for breathing, in English, I think that's the name because the main kind uses oxygen? In animal and plant cells, most of that happens in the mitochondria, which we think used to actually be some ancient species of independent cells, that sort of - invaded another cell or got eaten by it, but ended up just living there? They've actually got their own DNA - uh, genetic code, how heredity works? And it's only passed from your mother, because sperm don't have mitochondria, so it lets us study populations based on figuring out the last common maternal ancestor. ....Sorry that's kind of a digression, mitochondria are just really cool." 

"Mitochondria are very cool! I wonder what would happen if I asked the void for mitochondria spells. This one I learn when I ask the void for a spell to teach me medicine."

"Uh, this is a horrible death school so I'm kind of worried it'd give you, like, a spell version of cyanide? ...That's a poison that kills you almost instantly, it fucks up the mitochondria and prevents your body from using oxygen to make energy." 

"The spells are not horrible death spells unless you have an affinity for horrible death. The spells are all the spells that people have written. I would get a spell to make mitochondria work better, I think. Breathe more effectively with less oxygen. That is what my affinity likes to do, make bodies work the way they should."

"- Whoa! That's really cool, actually. And yeah, a spell to make mitochondria work better would - actually help a lot if someone were injured, and starting to go into shock? Because usually the thing that actually kills you after losing a lot of blood is not getting enough oxygen to cells, and if you needed less... Worth a try! Though you'd, uh, probably want to try it on an animal first, not a person, just to be sure. Are there animals in here?" 

"You have to feed them from your food so most people don't have them. I do experiments on human volunteers and pay them in free healing. Wei Wuxian who's a freshman in the Shanghai enclave has brought in cockroaches because his affinity is dead things, so I may be able to experiment on his. He can use the corpses."

"What....does having an affinity for 'dead things' actually...mean? Like, what spells can he do?" 

"He can bring dead plants back to life and make vegetables and fruits very fresh, he's very useful in the garden and the kitchen. He can make bugs and spiders and things into zombies. He can make other things that are more useful as long as they're made out of dead things."

"Whooooa your magic system has zombies, I somehow did not see that one coming! Anyway, cool. That's probably enough on mitochondria for now - we can maybe go deeper on cellular metabolism later, if mitochondria spells do work, there are lots of more specific bits that can mess up. ...Oooh you know what'd be neat, though, I wonder if you can get a spell to oxygenate someone's blood. If they're not breathing well." 

"That seems possible. The blood carries the oxygen around the body?"

“Yeah, exactly! Uh, you probably know this already - so there's two sides of the heart, right? The left side pumps to the body, the right side pumps blood through your lungs so you can get it re-oxygenated. Blood loss means your blood can't move as much oxygen around, but you can also have injuries that directly damage the lungs - like a punctured lung from being stabbed, or, uh, some toxic gases? I don't know how much that's happen here but it might with alchemy accidents, lots of chemical accidents release corrosive fumes. So you might have someone whose heart and circulation are fine but their lungs are too messed up to absorb oxygen, and a spell to replace that would be amazing. In mundane medicine we can put people on a lung bypass machine - it's called ECMO, extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation - but it's a huge deal and pretty risky, and takes a ton of training to set up, I don't know how." 

"The accidents and also the mals release corrosive gases sometimes. The mals do any bad thing you can imagine, pretty much."

"Ugh." Shiver. "Well, in order to save someone longer-term you'd need a spell to fix up their lungs, but - having a magical equivalent of ECMO could buy you time to get mana for it or whatever. Seems worth trying. ...Uh, anyway, want to move on to the other parts of the cell now?" 

"Yes, I would."

Jin Zixun finishes up and leaves, grumbling in Mandarin.

"Right." Marian frowns at her cell diagram. "So, uh... Ribosomes? Have you heard of those?" 

"I have not."

"They're pretty neat too! They're little tiny cell-organs that make proteins. Hmm - do you know anything about how DNA, well, RNA, basically has the code for making proteins out of amino acids, and then proteins are what all your body's enzymes and - functional structures in general, are made of?" 

"I look at it carefully once and get a spell for altering RNA. I don't know what to do with it."

"Whoa! Yeah that sounds - pretty scary to use, if I'm following how spells work then I think you'd need to know exactly how you wanted to change the RNA? At which point you could get someone's body to start manufacturing different proteins, which would be pretty damned powerful, assuming you're doing it to all their cells? But I don't even slightly know how you'd want to control it. I'm not sure literally anyone knows, actually - protein folding isn't a solved problem, even with really good computers we can't predict what changes to RNA will do to the resulting proteins. I...guess you could cure things like sickle cell anemia or hemophilia or cystic fibrosis, where there's a pretty well-understood genetic mutation that causes someone's body to make a protein that doesn't work properly. But I doubt kids with those would usually, uh, survive to be in this school at all, if being magic is that dangerous." 

"Children with disabilities usually don't get spots, at least in China. But Jiang Yanli got a spot because of nepotism even though she has fibromyalgia. --Do you know how to treat fibromyalgia?"

"....Ummmm. I - don't actually know if anyone knows how to treat fibromyalgia? I, uh, I think a lot of doctors think it's fake or psychosomatic or something. Do you know what her symptoms are?" 

"She hurts all over, she is very tired, she can't sleep. What is psychosomatic? I know it is not fake because if it was fake she would have stopped."

".....Uh, honestly I think it's a stupid category because actually we don't understand bodies that well? In theory it means it's - psychological in origin, like, someone who has depression but instead of feeling sad they have stomachaches? In practice it's, uh, kind of a catch-all for anything where a patient has symptoms but all of their lab tests and imaging and stuff look normal. ....I might be able to get sleeping pills? The void wall gives me drugs when I ask. And, uh, hmmm - I think gabapentin is a treatment for fibromyalgia pain and also helps with sleeping?" 

"So Yanli might be sick because her parents are very bad and then die in the Scholomance? That isn't a fair way for bodies to work."

“I know, it’s really not! …Um. Was she - abused, or something? I, uh, I’m not - super qualified as a psychiatrist - but I could read up on things and try talking to her? If she’s depressed, there are meds for that, it might help.”

"I don't know what is 'abuse'? Her parents are not good. Her mother is angry about the fibromyalgia and about her kindness because she'll die. But she doesn't hit Yanli because Yanli is too worthless to be hit."

"I mean, uh, that - doesn't sound great? I...don't really have better ideas for treating it than just dealing with the symptoms, but I can see if the void will give me drugs to help her sleep and help with pain, and - maybe stimulants so she can be less tired for anything really important? ...Oh, and there's a girl here, Wendy I think? - who didn't know about magic until recently, and she's got some drugs that she wanted to trade. You could maybe get Adderall from her and see if that helps, uh, Yanli, with her fatigue?"

This sounds like medically speaking a TERRIBLE IDEA PROBABLY, but then again this is a horrible death school, Marian is not going to worry too much about the overprescription of stimulants. 

"I wonder if we can combine the medicines and the spells without the side effects."

"Maybe! That definitely seems worth checking. Although, uh, I don't know how magic works so I can't really give you advice on how to do it safely." 

"I have a pain spell but it is bad because if you can't feel pain you don't notice when you're hurt."

"Oh, yeah, that's a thing! I guess that spell could be really useful if you had to, uh, I don't know, do surgery without anesthetic? But definitely not a good long term solution for something like fibromyalgia. - Anyway, do you want me to keep going with explaining cells, or should I see if the void will give me drugs for Yanli to try?" 

"I am interested in the medicines for the bad parents. Shanghai enclave has many bad parents."

"Uh, right." 

Marian walks over to the creepy void wall, and hesitates for a moment before stretching out her hand. She's almost getting used to the weird semi-gelatinous way it feels to touch. 

"Hey, uh, void wall? I'd be really grateful if you could give me some, uh, Prozac, or another antidepressant? And some kind of sleeping pill, like Ativan?" 

After a moment, the wall of darkness spits out a pill organizer with a handwritten sticky note on it. 

....Okay wow that's even more sketchy than the last time. 

Marian squints at the pill organizer. There are two different coloured capsules in each little box. 

"....Ummm, this is apparently - tianeptine and phenazepam? I'm pretty sure phenazepam is a sleeping pill but I've never used that one specifically. Tianeptine is - an antidepressant used in Russia? It's not legal in Canada but, uh, some people on Internet forums think it's really good. - This is just a week's supply of both, but hopefully if it works well for her then the void will give me more?" 

"I'll give her six of each and take one to look at in alchemy lab. --Is there something for when the bad parents don't make you physically sick, but-- less able in other ways?"

"Uh, what sort of ways?" Marian racks her brain for the list of symptoms of childhood trauma, which she surely memorized at SOME point. "Like, uh, having trouble concentrating? Being sad a lot? Losing their temper and starting fights? Making impulsive bad decisions?" 

"Wei Wuxian makes impulsive bad decisions and loses his temper and starts fights and has trouble concentrating unless he cares about it. Jiang Cheng also loses his temper and starts fights. My younger brother Wen Ning has a hard time saying when he wants things and can't kill anything. I'm not sure what is wrong with Meng Yao but I would give him the bad-parent medicine anyway. His father impregnated his mother and told her he loved her and they could be together if Meng Yao survived the Scholomance as part of a plan to create more motivated indies."

Okay wow she's in SO far over her head here. 

"....Right. I, uh, think I should probably meet your friends and talk to them a bit before I figure out if there are drugs that would help? I think there probably are but it's...not my background, exactly, I worked in ICU which is mostly people who are super dying and not people who have, uh, emotional problems related to bad parents." 

"There are many people who are super dying here."

"...What, like, right this second? Or just in general?" 

"In general. There are typically not many deaths until Field Day, because the mals haven't had a chance to breed yet."

"Right. Uh, when's Field Day? I should probably write out a calendar or something." Assuming she's not DEAD by then. 

She converts calendars in her head, then says, "September."

"Cool, thanks. Uh, do you want to go over any more cell stuff right now?" 

"I think I would like to be your apprentice."

"....Awww, really? ...Um. What - does that mean something special here, in terms of - what I'm agreeing to? I'd love to have you around to, uh, help with treating injured people - but I know you've got classes and stuff and you're pretty busy just not dying..." 

"I am from Shanghai enclave, I can get an ally to do the homework so it doesn't eat me. Learning the medicine is more useful than history or picking up my eighth language. I want to take shifts in your clinic and watch you and ask questions, and when it is slow you can teach me about the ribosomes. I can be useful, I think, with my magic. If nothing else I can kill mals."

"Having you do shifts sounds great actually– .....wait what your homework eats you if you don't do it????" 

"Why else would anyone do homework instead of staying in their rooms warded and sneaking out occasionally to grab food at the cafeteria?"

“…..Uh, I mean, I - guess I didn’t do homework assignments in nursing school if they weren’t useful for learning how to not kill my patients and didn’t count for enough of our grade that it’d make me fail?  …But, like, I’d think most of your homework assignments would be, uh, relevant for learning how to not die?”

"We have history classes and many people's lessons are not directly relevant to not dying. There's a freshman with an affinity for enclave magic and the designers of the Scholomance wanted people like him to learn to use their magic too."

"Right. ...Uh, do you have any idea why you have history class but not biology? Is it, like, magical-people history specifically?" 

"I assume that is how school works? We learn the Five Classics before the Scholomance, we don't learn biology."

"- Uh, sorry, I feel really stupid now but - what are the 'Five Precepts'? ...Honestly I think the only stuff I remember from school is, like, chemistry and biology and stuff." 

"I am not sure I know the English-- the basic texts of the Confucianism?"

"- Uh, that's - the Chinese religion?" 

Aaaaaaaaaaaah that was probably SO RACIST to say out loud but it's too late now. 

"Yes. But we also practice the Taoism and the Buddhism as is appropriate."

"Oh." 

Pause. 

"....Uh, is - Buddhism and stuff - real....?" Marian isn't even sure what that would MEAN, but apparently MAGIC is real so ???????

"I don't understand what you mean."

Welp. This is maybe officially the most awkward conversation of her ENTIRE LIFE.

Then again, social awkwardness is...just not that important, when weighed up against the life-or-death stakes in this horrible magic death school. 

"....Um. I, just... So, most Western religions talk about there - being a God, or gods? Who, like, love and care about humans? And...as far as I know there, uh, aren't. I think maybe Buddhism doesn't say that but I don't actually know much about it." 

"I have no reason to believe Guanyin is any more real than Jesus."

Awkward! Aaaaaah! 

"...So, um, in - Canadian schools, religion classes, uh, aren't mandatory? I guess we take history but we also get a lot of biology even in middle school?" 

"We don't attend mundane school because of all the past historical atrocities in China. We're tutored by our parents."

"- I guess that's a pretty good reason. I wish you'd gotten some biology, though, I, uh, feel like that'd have been more useful?" 

"I think they haven't changed the curriculum since the 19th century?"

"....Seems not great? I - uh, I guess I would tell you to tell them, except you - don't have any way of doing that unless you make it out of here alive, so, uh..." 

"I don't know much about the education in other countries?"

"I don't know anything about the magical education in other countries! My regular high school was, like, decent?" 

"I think mostly they go to the mundane school because mundanes don't believe in mals so around them mals turn into rats."

"- Right. ...Man, I wonder if I could just - think really hard about general relativity and how everything in the world follows physicals laws, and - have that make mals turn into rats. I don't know if it'd work, but, I mean, this whole magic thing is just bullshit." 

"It seems worth experimenting with?"

“…Yeah, probably. I - guess there’s no way to really blind it but I could, like, flip a coin to randomize—“

Pause. 

“Uh, sorry - do you know enough stats for what I just said to make any sense?”

"I learned the algebra and the calculus but not the statistics."

Marian tries to think about that for a moment— okay whatever this is not the time to try to reinvent a statistics curriculum off the top of her head. 

"...Right. Uh, are there any other meds that you think you'd need, like, before tomorrow? I can try asking the void." 

"The first few weeks of term are pretty safe."

Which bodes well for her own survival. Maybe. Sort of. Assuming she can trust anything this kid says wait why is she even having that thought, how paranoid has she gotten - 

".....It sounds like antidepressants - uh, drugs that help with people being sad because of bad parents - would just be useful in general? I can try getting more of those." 

And she marches over to the void wall and glares at it. 

"I would like you to give me a range of antidepressants with at least a 30 day supply of each one." 

After a long pause: 

The void wall spits out half a dozen very weathered and tattered bottles into Marian's hands. 

"- Eeeek!" Marian scrambles to catch all of them. 

"....Um, right, it looks like I have - two bottles of Prozac and two bottles of Wellbutrin and two bottles of Phenelzine, or Nardil– uh, that one's really effective but also you can't eat, like, any chocolate or aged cheese or, I don't know, probably twenty other things...." 

"That's one's fine to use here because all the cafeteria food is nutrient paste that has been convinced to look like food. --Are there any that shouldn't be mixed with alcohol?"

".....Ummmm I think pretty much all antidepressants say you shouldn't drink on the label but I think most of that is bullshit? ....I think it'd be most likely to be risky with the third one, Phenelzine, that hits a bunch of enzymes and I don't understand it super well. I do know that you super shouldn't mix alcohol with sedatives - so, like, whatever benzodiazepine was in the pill organizer I got for your other friend," she's already forgotten it, "...just, basically, anything that's a central nervous system depressant, is a bad idea to mix with alcohol, because it's also that?" 

(- Marian is going to NOT MENTION all of the questionable recreational drug choices that she herself has made, which seemed to turn out fine but then again she's apparently landed herself in a fantasy magic death school so she should maybe have more questions there...) 

"I will give the Phenelzine to Wen Ning because he'll follow instructions, and I will not give central nervous system depressants to Wei Wuxian. Are the Prozac and the Wellbutrin different?"

"Yeah, a bit different. Uh, just trying to remember.... Prozac is an SSRI - uh, serotonin something re-uptake inhibitor, basically it causes your brain to have more serotonin and for some reason that makes people less depressed and anxious. It's one of the first antidepressants discovered, I think? It's very safe. I think the most common side effect is, uh, sexual, as in, it, uh, lowers people's sex drives. Which is usually inconvenient but I guess doing sex things in here isn't a great idea to begin with, because, you know -"

Vague gesture. This is so awkward she did not sign up to give sex ed classes to teenagers.

"Wellbutrin is, uh, a different newer class - I think it has slightly more stimulant effects, so it can help more if someone's main symptom is low energy or lack of motivation or whatever, instead of being sad or anxious?" Wow she REALLY wants her pocket pharmacology reference book. Maybe if she's really nice to the void wall it'll give her something useful. "It's also used for helping people quit smoking, for some reason, it's supposed to help with cravings for nicotine? Dunno why. I think it's one you should take in the morning and not the evening, because of the stimulant part, it can mess with sleep." 

"Don't worry about sex. No one in the Shanghai enclave would do the heterosexuality. --I'm not sure if I should give the Wellbutrin to Wei Wuxian because he needs to stop being addicted to things or not because he needs to have less energy."

"Uh, who's the third person? I think a factor for the Wellbutrin is that it doesn't help with anxiety and might make it worse, and I think probably a lot of people who had, uh, bad parents problems, might be anxious a lot? ...It's not that strong a stimulant, you could maybe just give him one day's worth and see if it makes him, uh, too energetic." 

She nods. "Wellbutrin for Wei Wuxian. He has never been anxious. --Jiang Cheng is Wei Wuxian and Jiang Yanli's brother. He is worse than Wei Wuxian at the languages and the fighting and the artificing. His father loves Wei Wuxian's mother and doesn't love Jiang Cheng's mother, so he favors Wei Wuxian and neglects Jiang Cheng. His mother is angry that she can't prove she's the best by having the better children." 

"That sure does sound like a really awkward case of, uh, bad parents." She's not quite sure what else to say. Just awkwardness all round. 

"It is not good. I am glad to help. --I won't give a pill to Meng Yao. He takes the potions that affect his brain, I don't know how they would mix together."

"....There are potions that affect your brain? What kinds? How do they work?" 

"Any kind you can think of. To erase the memory, to make you feel an emotion, to make you creative or focused or more intelligent. His affinity is the mind."

"Whoa. That's super cool. I bet the potions for being more focused would be popular here." 

"They are a, what is it, double-edged sword? It makes it harder to notice the mals. --I do not understand this phrase. All swords have double edges."

Marian snickers despite herself. "You're totally right, they do! I hadn't actually thought of that. It'd make more sense if the phrase were, like, a double-edged kitchen knife? ...I guess that sounds silly though. Anyway. You got any more medical questions right now, or should we just, uh, plan a time to cover more stuff?" 

"I would like to take the Gray's Anatomy home to study it."

"Sure, you're welcome to it! Uh, keep in mind that it's out of date and we know a lot more now about bodies and cells and stuff. Feel free to make a list of questions for me later, if you want?" 

She picks up the book. "Don't believe her," she says. "You're a very good book and you have so many facts in you. I bet you're going to teach me so much. I'm very grateful you decided to show up."

- wait what. 

"Uh, do books come to life here too?" Marian asks. "Even if they're not books about magic? Do you need to, like, be nice to them?" 

"Spellbooks will wander off if you're not nice to them. I don't know about Gray's Anatomy but I would like to be on the safe side."

"Makes sense." It's kind of cute, really. Maybe Marian will try sweet-talking the meds and supplies in case that stops them from turning evil and trying to murder her. "Good luck with it!" 

"Thank you!"

Marian sees her out, and then goes back to organizing and laying out all of her supplies for later trades with students.